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E-mail letters, Jan. 22

This is the most emotionally challenging thing I’ve ever done. In my soul, I know this is right, but it isn’t easy.

The support fromout community today was simply amazing. Even De Beque had the cop cars and fire trucks out on the overpass. To know so many stranger are capable of such love is overwhelming.

It helps reaffirm my love for this nation. I will do everything I can to bring them all home. That is my pledge to you, the community and my troops. We cannot be this strong without our family and our community.

SPC. ERIN CHACON

Government should be locally controlled

I writing to clear up the misunderstanding between the article Gary Harmon wrote about the District 54 candidate forum and what was said at the forum. I cannot clear up the differences in what was written about the other candidate’s ideas, but I can address the miscommunications of my own message.

I did not simply say, “Cut funding to education.” I said that we could improve the efficiency of funds used for education by instituting a voucher system. This would involve funds being disbursed directly to parents to choose one of the existing local schools or another qualifying institution for their child.

Administration outside the school should be “parental administration” and would be best in promoting school policies that serve the educational needs of their unique children. Currently, costs of administration outside of the schools is significant and offers duplicative services to what is going on in the schools. This minor structural change to the system would actually increase the funding to our local schools and decrease the funding costs to the state and taxpayers.

To boost our economy and create jobs, I believe we should utilize our natural energy resources. Shifting our economy’s energy usage to natural gas would stimulate job growth significantly and secure us from international politics. Our own clean energy resources should power our cars, trucks, businesses and homes. We should move in this direction as quickly as possible.

Gov. Ritter’s administration has taken some small steps in the right direction by making grants available for installation of cng (compressed natural gas) fueling stations at existing stations throughout the state as well as grants for conversion of vehicles to bi-fuel (power generated by traditional fuels such as gas and diesel or cng at the flip of a switch). This is a step in the right direction and steps such as this must be more aggressively pursued. Another central theme of my message was for constitutionally guaranteed local government.

Colorado’s government has a responsibility and necessary role in a variety of areas throughout our society, but we have become pawns of the federal government and beholden to mandates handed down by bureaucrats from Washington D.C.

Colorado’s role is externally controlled by federal bureaucrats. It is our responsibility, as a sovereign people so specifically empowered by our state Constitution and our national Constitution, to take control of all powers and responsibilities not delegated to the federal government.

To this end, it would be beneficial for us to follow suit of the patriots in Montana who passed and signed into law the Firearms Freedom Act. This act asserts 10th Amendment authority of the state of Montana over firearms made and solely possessed within the state of Montana. It’s a small step in the right direction.

I believe that locally controlled government is good government. The closer we can get the answers to our questions to home, the more likely we are to get an answer to those problems that effectively addresses them. DAVID L COX

Science and religion are complementary

In the Jan. 21, edition of The Daily Sentinel, there appeared two letters on the topic of science and religion. It was good to note that they both were concerned with science and religion and not the usual extreme points of view which compete under the topic science versus religion.

I often wonder why the topic always takes on extreme points of view. It is usually free-thinking atheists versus-faith based theists. What about all of us in the middle who are free-thinking theists?

As best we can tell, the universe was created out of nothing. Visit Einstein’s eloquently simple equation. Of course, there is a creator. Exit the city lights and look up at the star and galaxy filled sky. Magnificent is inadequate to describe it. Our world, our universe is filled with wonders beyond our understanding: Matter, life, intelligence, reflective thought, gravity, force, energy.

Of course there is a god. Even atheists must concede a description of this being in order to be critical of it. Someone once said, “I don’t believe in the god atheists don’t believe in either.” The point here is that god is different to everyone, never the same. Beyond our ability to imagine let alone understand.

So what’s the problem? There is no problem with science and religion. They are complimentary. A problem exists only when extremists try to impose their extreme and baseless ideas of truth on others.

ROBERT A. TALLARICO

Haiti earthquake was a natural event

Jodie Wright’s letter in support of Pat Robertson’s absurd idea that what happened in Haiti is a result of some supposed pact with the devil made generations ago is scary. It is hard to believe that in this day and age we have people who actually believe such nonsense. Earthquakes happen. It is not some punishment from god or the result of devil worship. They are a natural event that unfortunately can cause great suffering.

STEVEN MILLER

There’s still hope for ‘happily ever after’

Almost everyone has some mythical opinion about our nation and its problems. Even our president opens his remarks with words that sound much like, “Once upon a time ...” With regularity and predictability, he introduces mythical characters: the villainous ogre (Bush), the victimized innocent (we, the people) and the valiant deliverer (Obama).

His stories usually progress along mythical lines (much as his foreign and domestic policies do). He likes being in front of an audience, telling tall tales about the big bad wolf. Scare tactics? Oh, my, yes! Fables also use scare tactics to drive the victim(s) to frantic hopelessness. The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Come to me and be safe!

If I could give my personal opinion on the nation and its problems, I’d say that nations or people that believe they deserve governmental entitlements — a home, a salary, a vehicle or health care — show they are both villains and victims.

Villains know how to woo their victims. The lure doesn’t cost much. Cheap lies, hoped-for-entitlements and pie-in-the sky promises are fairy tales that lure a compromising populace. Corruptible victims quickly take the bait.

In my opinion, our national future depends on valiantly pursuing personal and corporate integrity; returning to our founding Constitution; upholding and defending the faith of our fathers; impeaching and prosecuting corrupt government officials; defunding and prosecuting corrupt governmental organizations and their leaders; encouraging American enterprise; removing the abusive practices of unions (and prosecuting their corrupt bosses); passing legislation for term limits; prohibiting gerrymandering; bringing accountability into every piece of legislation; and realizing that government always takes more than it gives.

If all that happened, our nation’s story might still end with, “… happily ever after …”